Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 392, 12 November 1903, Page 2

Traveller.

IN THE WEST AFB[CAN JUNGLE. ■HE natives of different countries worship gods of various formssame beautiful, many hideous—but probably few of our readers have ever heard of a bottle of soda-water being regarded as the' white man's god.' Two English officers recently visited the native town of Bendi, in West Africa, which is the headquarters of a fetish known a 9 the ' Long Jaju.' The natives have surrounded their lifces with such mystery that these were the first whites whom they had permitted to enter the town.

Their reception by the chiefs was attended with a peculiar ceremony. The proceedings opened by the headman of the town walking round the ring holding & skull in one hand and wildly gesticulating with the other, as the same time uttering curses upon all the white men and their descendants i? any harm befell the townspeople by reason of their visit.

After this tha head friendly chief who came with the expedition walked round the circle calliag down maledictions upon the natives if any harm befell the white men durißg their visit, For his fetish, instead of a skull he carried in his hand an ordinary bottle of cheap soda-water, and at the critical moment, when he had exhausted his list of curses, he leaped into the ring and opened the bottle, and the cork went off with a loud report.

The effect was as ridiculous as it was instantaneous. The natives, with one accord—chiefs, women, and childre straightaway fled. Tie people were rofoundly impressed with what they ea lied 'the white man's god in a bottle.' During the whole" j aurney the letting off of soda-water corks always had the desired (fleet of impressing the people w th the power of the white man's ' Jaju.'

STUDENIS' BALL AT PAEIS The ' Bai des Quartz Arts,' which has just taken placa in Pari3, is the wildest and most fantastic fete which the imagination of Bohemia has ever conceived. It is the climax cf the art students' year. Months before the designing of costumes begins; months afterwards studios still ring with echoes of past frolics. Each Paris studio is represented at the ball by a car, round which the students are grouped. Every year a fiat goßs forth from a committee, naming the period or style to which the ccs'.umea must belong. This time everyone had to be mediae ral—not mediißv&l in any scrappy, perfunctory way, but attired in a costume genuinely copied from a dress of the Middle Ages, Not only is fancy dress always absolutely obligatory, but anybody appearing at the door in such garb as a monk's robe and cowl is inexorably desied admittance, on the ground that he has not taken sufficient trouble about devising a costume, -

tlii Towards 1 o'clock the ballroom- was a bewildering Right.. On one side were ranged the cars, on the other the medieval \ crowd was starting the ball with some 'preparatory dancing. Then came the maich past of the cars, which slowly emerged from what looked liked an inextricable chaos cf fantastic costumes and nightmarish monsters, One by one, to the sound of unearthly yells, half drowning a tremendously powerful orchestra playing continuously fortissimo, the monumental, cardboard structures devised by each studio passed before the masters and the jury. The laboratory of Dr. Pfttsatua appeared, dragged slowly along. The philosopher is peering into destiny, and what he sees is a throng of skeletons dancing the cake walk. In front of them, girls in blazing colors surround a diabolical looking woman in black tights from head to foot, with yellow flowers in her raven hair. She is a well known model in the studios of the Boulevard Mcntparnasse: A medial fortress being stormed by men-at-arms on foot, and gallant knights on hobby horses, followed in the procession. Eventually, towards 5 in the morning, the stronghold give way and collapsed completely with'a fearful noise of broken wood and clouds of dust from ripped up pasteboard. The first prize at the ball was won by the car of the Black Mass. A gigantic golden goat on its haunches, amid hundreds of wax candles, g&zes down upon a scene for other details of which readers must be referred to the novels of J I, Huysmans before that writer went into a monastry. As may have been inferred, nothing is too outrageous for the Bal de Quatz Arts. The second prize went to the car representing a great silver dish, en which lay a nud9 model among rose petals, under a moving electric flashlight. Sancho Panza, on a wooden horse, with on each side a model as nude as she would be when posing in a studio, and a Bock of Hours, against the open pages of which stood another nude model, were among the other cars. Towards 7 am. the students of the Latin Quarter left the ball and wont in a procession to the Ecole des Beauz-Arts, where a cardboard nigger was impaled on a post in the courtyard, set fire to, and burnt to ashes. This symbolical performance was intended to mark the doom cf the cako walk, which the art students of Paris consider to be played out. »